


The Soul Finds Center

by antimonyandthyme



Category: Psycho-Pass
Genre: M/M, very slight spoilers for season 3 episode 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:15:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23591440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antimonyandthyme/pseuds/antimonyandthyme
Summary: Ginoza drives while Kougami snoozes in the passenger seat next to him. The sight is so familiar it causes his chest to tighten.“What do you think, Dad,” he asks quietly into the darkness. If he looks hard enough in the rear-view mirror, his eyes transform into Masaoka’s. “Is this a second chance? Maybe I was too hard on him after all.”Maybe you were too hard on yourself, he hears his father say, kind and gentle and everything Ginoza doesn’t deserve.
Relationships: Ginoza Nobuchika/Kougami Shinya
Comments: 18
Kudos: 94





	The Soul Finds Center

He’s unable to mask his surprise when Federica introduces him to his partner. She’s had to have known that the two of them have—history. Which implies that regardless of what their file said, their superior had still deemed it beneficial for them to work together. Ginoza frowns, corrects himself. Not Federica, Sibyl had deemed it so.

Kougami’s filled out a little, grown broader and stronger. A lethal fighter he’s become, experience and confidence writ into the lines of his body. He carries himself with the same ease that Ginoza once coveted. Though there’s a telltale twitch in his fingers, as if he’s itching for a cigarette. 

It’s a somewhat reassurance that he isn’t the only anxious party.

And haven’t they both lost enough, he wonders. Hasn’t the system taken them both, chewed them up and spit them out like leftover, broken goods, to be recycled if they had any use left, or thrown away if found empty-handed. As much as he despised Kougami once, for being everything Ginoza had tried so desperately not to become, and somehow coming out on the other side _liberated_ , unbound from the invisible shackles that threatened to choke the rest of them, he doesn’t now. Time does heal. If he thinks about it, all he wanted then was for Kougami to return. It’s hard to watch a bird fly free when you’re stuck in a cage after all. 

“Kougami,” he greets, and try as he might, he can’t keep the warmth out of his tone. “It’s good to see you.”

Kougami blinks, disbelief in his eyes, and Ginoza wants to laugh. It’s a strange look on Kougami, unflappable, unmovable Kougami. 

“Gino,” he finally says, a smile creeping on his face, hesitant but genuine. His voice aches of something, of years wasted, of better times past perhaps. “It’s good to see you too.”

\--

In many ways, the system isn’t wrong. It saw that the two of them would do great things together then, and it sees the same thing now. He and Kougami fit back seamlessly like two pieces of an incomplete puzzle. They don’t bring up Akane. 

Ginoza drives while Kougami snoozes in the passenger seat next to him. The sight is so familiar it causes his chest to tighten. 

“What do you think, Dad,” he asks quietly into the darkness. The highway stretches thin and stark in front of him, empty but for a couple of transport vans. If he looks hard enough in the rear-view mirror, his eyes transform into Masaoka’s. “Is this a second chance? Maybe I was too hard on him after all.”

 _Maybe you were too hard on yourself_ , he hears his father say, kind and gentle and everything Ginoza doesn’t deserve. 

He flicks his eyes to the left, makes sure Kougami really is sleeping. And out of some masochistic urge to prove it, to cement to himself how far he’s fallen, he flips his scanner on and checks his Psycho-Pass. 

_One-twenty-nine_ , the little animated hologram chirps at him while wagging its fingers in an almost disapproving way. The lowest its been since Masaoka’s death. 

“Huh,” is all he can think to say, even as Kougami shifts at his side. 

\--

The trafficking ring is embedded deep in the fabric of their city infrastructure, with warehouses and transport chains running from Deijima all the way to New Town. Federica dispatches them to ensure the capture of one of the key players, and Ginoza finds himself back on Tokyo soil for the first time in what feels like years. 

Kougami must sense his restlessness somehow, memories and regret warring on the battlefield of his mind, the same way he always knows when Ginoza neglects to eat, or when he fails to get a good night’s rest. The same way he knew the motive for Ginoza’s glasses then, and why he bares his eyes to the rest of the world now. Kougami sees it all, and he stays close to Ginoza throughout the entire mission, covers his side and back without hesitation. 

Relief and gratitude stick in Ginoza’s throat. 

They break apart slightly only when the Public Safety Bureau come at them. And for some strange, comforting reason, it is only in this instance that Kougami takes his eyes of him, trusts him to be able to handle his own against the taller Inspector. Ginoza drives the man to the ground, feeling calm settle over him at last. It says something awfully inverted about him, that his mind clears only after a fight, after violence. 

Surely Sibyl will find fault in this, but in the plane ride back, with Kougami resting two rows ahead, Ginoza’s Psycho-Pass reads the same.

\--

“ _Ow._ ”

“Hold still,” Ginoza snaps, wondering at the tremble in his real fingers. For the first time since the accident, Ginoza’s grateful for his prosthetic hand. It binds up Kougami’s wound swiftly, pulling tight at the makeshift bandage around Kougami’s torso.

“Gino,” Kougami says softly.

“Don’t,” Ginoza interrupts, because he can’t. Can’t listen when Kougami’s tone goes tender like that. “Get up, we’re getting out of here.” 

He slips his hand under Kougami, hauling him up as gently as he can. A blast goes off close to them, blanketing the warehouse in smoke and bright light. Ginoza shakes his head, ears ringing, and blindly throws one of Kougami’s arms around his shoulders. 

“Gino,” Kougami tries again.

“No,” he says, steel and ice and fire in his refusal. He stands up, slightly wobbly, trying to ignore Kougami’s raw sound of pain as he pulls him to his feet. “Don’t you dare ask.”

“I wasn’t,” Kougami finally says, his words clear even amidst the chaos around them. “I know you wouldn’t leave me.”

Ginoza blinks at him, because a few years ago he may have, had his head so far up his ass he couldn’t tell friend from fox or fear from self-loathing. He may have chosen to abandon a comrade simply because of a label Sibyl placed on them. But Gino is not that man now. And once again, like an open book, Kougami sees it all, has faith and confidence to say with certainty, _You won’t leave me_.

“I trust you,” Kougami exhales weakly, slumping heavily against him. “I’m sorry for the trouble, however. That’s all I seem to be good for when it comes to you.”

“Shut up,” Ginoza grits out, gripping him tighter. His eyes sting, from the smoke or from his own tears he can barely tell. “Apologize later, you goddamned asshole.” 

Later, in a hospital bed getting tests for excessive smoke inhalation, Ginoza requests a Psycho-Pass reading from a passing nurse droid. Kougami’s passed out in the bed next to him. He’ll be dizzy and in pain for the next few days, and his wound will require him to stay off-field for at least a week. But he’ll be fine. As he somehow always is. 

It’s up slightly from the last time he checked, but not by a significant amount to warrant alarm. Back when he was still an Inspector, a stress-heavy mission would ratchet up his hue by a sickening fifteen points at a time. Now, try as he might, his reading stays stable. The irony isn’t lost on him. 

The implication however, dances just out of his reach.

\--

“Hey,” Kougami says tiredly. 

Ginoza cracks an eye open. He’s alive, then. He shifts, stiffening when his entire body protests in pain. _Ah_ , he remembers with sudden clarity. _I was shot_. 

Kougami eyes are ringed dark, and his hair is mussed up. He looks like he hasn’t slept for days. “How’re you feeling?”

“Fine,” Ginoza lies, because the look on Kougami’s face is not alright, in this context, or any context, ever. Ginoza had the same guilt morphing his features when Masaoka died in his arms. Kougami will know he’s lying of course, the same way he knows every twitch and tell of his body as if it were his own. But Ginoza will not have this on his conscience, will put himself between Kougami and the world if it means protecting what peace of mind Kougami’s fought so hard to attain. “I’m fine,” he reiterates. 

Kougami nods shortly, the taut line of his shoulders dissipating fractionally. He reaches forward hesitantly, and settles a hand on Ginoza’s real one, stroking the backs of his knuckles. They stay like that for a while, and Ginoza watches as Kougami drifts off to sleep.

Out of habit, Ginoza flicks his scanner on. His Psycho-Pass reads— 

“Stop that,” Kougami snaps. He sounds angry. The first time he’s been angry with Ginoza since they reunited. “You think I don’t know what you’re doing? Stop it.”

“What—”

“Was this why you stepped in front of me? Huh, Gino? Has everything you’ve done just been to keep your reading down?”

“Wait,” Ginoza says, panic setting in, because underneath that anger he detects a thread of hurt, and _no_ , he can’t have Kougami misunderstand this. He flung himself in front of Kougami when he saw Jackdaw pull out his gun, because he couldn’t _not_ do it, couldn’t lose the only partner he’s ever trusted, couldn’t let go of the only person he’s ever loved since his father. “Kougami, please,” he says. “That’s not it.”

Kougami looks away, breathing hard. And Ginoza knows—this is it. This is where he gets to decide if this partnership continues or is sundered forever. 

“My Psycho-Pass doesn’t mean anything to me now,” he says quietly. It’s terrifying to admit out loud, but oddly freeing. “Being a latent criminal or not, where I stand in society, those things have lost their hold on me.” He gazes at Kougami, wills him to see the truth in his words. “It doesn’t matter to me how high my numbers are. I know what I am, and I’ve made peace with it.”

Kougami shakes his head. “I don’t understand. Why check?”

“They stayed the same,” Ginoza whispers. “My readings, through all of this. They’ve stayed the same.”

Kougami’s eyes grow wide. “Gino,” he breathes.

“This,” Ginoza chokes out, gesturing weakly between the two of them. “Being with you. Protecting you. Seeing this through to the end with you. I know now this is what I’m meant to do. I’ve finally found the thing that I’m not at war with, that doesn’t push me higher or lower because it’s just— _right_.”

He doesn’t know if he’s making sense, if Kougami understands, that all his Psycho-Pass did was to confirm what he knew all along. But Kougami comes closer, frames his face with shaking fingers. Looks at him with wonder, comprehension, and love, then leans in close, and kisses him as gently and tenderly as Ginoza knew he would.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Did anyone's heart stop when the two of them appeared like SURPRISE WE'RE BACK FOR 2 SECONDS in Season 3?  
> 2\. Anyway this is basically me coping with that.


End file.
